Opening up gardening for wheelchair users

Gardening is a wonderful pastime to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities.

As well as physical and mental fitness, gardening improves social bonding, helping to bring people out of isolation, encouraging the mixing of people of all abilities and all generations; fighting the segregation often faced by people with disabilities.

Five years ago a group of French architects and artists got together with disabled gardeners to create the TERRAform wheelchair accessible allotment and TERRAform is now available in the UK.

The gardens have been created especially for wheelchair users or those for find standing up difficult. The special ergonomic shape allows gardeners to grow produce in full soil while facing straight on to their work. Gardener can comfortably reach the middle and edges of the grow box without having to move. Over 100 TERRAform gardens are being used in family gardens, retirement homes, care homes, schools and hospitals

Boxes can be linked together or kept separate depending on intended use and the layout of the site. The unique cutaway casing which gives ideal wheelchair access is highly durable polyethylene and is 100% recycled and 100% recyclable. The wooden sides are preservative-treated European Douglas Fir. They can be assembled in minutes without specialist tools.